The last four posts in this series covered some very important record types for researching Pennsylvania German ancestors: initial land purchases from the Penns, subsequent land transactions, probate records, and church records. As I stated earlier, because Pennsylvania Germans were, after all, Pennsylvanians, additional Pennsylvania record types will also be valuable to your research. I will briefly mention a few of those records here, with information specific to researching Pennsylvania Germans. Tax Records Tax records...
Pennsylvania did not require the registration of births, marriages, or deaths until 1906.9 Births, marriages, and deaths were recorded by Pennsylvania counties from 1851-1855, and then again beginning in 1893 and continuing until 1905. County marriage records began again as early as 1885. The late starting dates for state and county records means that vital records will not be found for our early Pennsylvania German ancestors. Church records act as a valuable substitute. Church records...
Historically, since the first permanent settlement, there has never been a time in North America when people did not make wills or when the estates of those who failed to do so were not handled by a court appointed for that purpose to ensure that the rightful heirs–the legal heirs–became the heirs in fact.17 The Value of Probate Records We have established that land was very important to our Pennsylvania German ancestors and we learned...
Last week I wrote about the transfer of lands from the family of William Penn and the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania to original owners. These transfers resulted in what are known as “First Titles.” When one of these original owners sold their land to a buyer, the resulting document was a deed. Because our Pennsylvania German ancestors would have been involved in subsequent land transactions as they lived in and migrated through the state, it is...
…whoever brings plenty of money-he will have it good. For whoever brings in money can buy a piece of land.23 As we have discussed in the first three posts in this series, one of the reasons our Pennsylvania Germans left their homeland and came to America was the promise of land. Letters and tracts that told of Pennsylvania’s virtues were widely distributed in Germany. Friends and family members shared these with one another. Escaping the...
When German-speaking immigrants arrived in America, they tended to settle in communities of German-speaking people. Although the residents of a particular community may have come from different areas of German-speaking Europe, they had similar customs and similar ways of life that they retained for many years. At the same time, Pennsylvania Germans were eager to avail themselves of the opportunities of this new land. Remember that even though our Pennsylvania Germans retained much of their...
In the first post in this series, Heidi Mathis provided a great overview of the push and pull factors that motivated our Pennsylvania German ancestors to come to America. In this post, I will answer the questions “How did they get here?” and “What happened once they arrived?” I will also discuss records that might (or might not) have been created along the way. Preparing to Leave the Homeland In order to leave Germany,...
Are you one of the millions of Americans who have a German in your family tree? In an earlier series, Tracing Your 19th Century German Ancestors, I distinguished the largest wave of German immigrants to the U.S. who came in the 19th century from the smaller group who came in the colonial period. Colonial Germans, or as they are better known, the Pennsylvania “Dutch” (a misnomer of Deutsch, or German), make up one of...